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December 8 Thursday Bicycle touring Spain from Ronda Spain to Archidona Spain Happy Birthday, Sharon! We awake to bugles coming from an army camp obscured in a cloud somewhere below us. We arise from our two-person bicycle touring tent and enter the motor home to eat cereal with Rae and Nigel. I try an expresso coffee packet that Sharon found in the store. Nigel says Sharon did very well to find it. It's the good kind, he says. Then Rae and Nigel kick us out of the motor home. They are off to walk the town and we are left to pack up our cycling gear. Once we are done, we cycle back into town to use a washroom at a gas station. Sometimes I feel we are on a first name basis with some of these guys -- and sometimes we are. Rae and Nigel show up at the gas station shortly after I get back finished shaving, which Rae notices right away. They say the town is too touristy for them; they're leaving. They don't like a lot of people around and they aren't afraid to admit they are antisocial. They were in the Bed and Breakfast industry for nine years. It's taken a toll from being taken advantage of one too many times. They tell us they are careful who they are around and who they have for friends now. Rae and Nigel set off for Gibraltar; Sharon and I are soon cycling on our way to Granada. Sharon wants to see the Alhambra, a Moorish palace there. Rae and Nigel plan to be in Granada in about three or four days. "How about if we meet?" Nigel suggests. We pick two campgrounds out of a campground book they have to meet at. As they leave, Sharon and I agree on one thing: This will never work. Too much planning. We probably won't meet them until we're toodling around on our touring bicycles in Greece. The weather is great for bicycle touring. Sunny blue sky. Supposedly this is unusual for the inland at this time of year. It's usually a lot more rainy and colder. We cycle toward Granada, cycling steadily on a little-used, poorly surfaced, road with lots of green flat places to camp. Sharon says we should camp now -- they are so nice. And they are. But we've only cycled five kilometres, so we push on. The terrain turns to scrub brush. Olive trees have been planted systematically on the rocky hillside. Which reminds me -- I tried an olive straight off a tree the other day. Yuck! The most awful taste I've ever had the misfortune to sample. Not ripe? Don't know, but I do know why they don't have to put fences around olive groves. Farther down the road, we pull our touring bikes to a stop to check out a couple of possible free camp spots, but decide against them and elect to cycle onward. We hit the busy N road. As night falls, we find we are cycling along with fences on both sides of us and nowhere for us to camp with our little bicycle touring tent. A road exits off to Archidona. We pedal a very steep hill past the town as darkness falls. I think a generator headlight would be a wise idea for our world bicycle tour. We have made many cycling forays into darkness. A road, leading to someone's house, appears off to the side. I scout it out while Sharon holds both bikes by the roadside. The moon comes over the hill as I climb the road and casts my shadow starkly on the ground. The brightness appeared so suddenly and unexpectedly that I actually turned around to see where the light was coming from. What a surprise to see it is the moon! I find a spot and return to where Sharon is waiting. We push our fully loaded touring bikes to a semi-level spot beside the uphill road, lamenting that it will probably mean having to scrape mud off our tires in the morning again. Sharon holds the bikes again, while I climb the rest of the road to the top. It ends at a walled villa. There is a flat spot with grass and a paved area from flat stones fitted together beneath a tree outside the villa, but the path to the tree is through a plowed field. Major gumbo in the morning for sure and I don't know if the villa owners would approve. There doesn't appear to be anyone around at the moment. It is dark and silent. I trudge back downhill to Sharon. After telling her of my discovery we decide to set up alongside the road where we are. Dogs bark in the distance. We fall asleep beneath the glimmer of a star-studded sky. |
